Skip to main content
Main

To Jug Pigeons

A preserved pigeon dish where pigeons are stuffed with a liver and spice mixture, boiled in a jug with celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Jug Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Pull the pigeons without washing.

  2. Crop the pigeons.

  3. Draw the pigeons.

  4. Place the livers in scalding water for 1-2 minutes.

  5. Mince and bruise the livers with a spoon.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the minced livers with pepper, coarse sea salt, grated nutmeg, lemon peel, chopped parsley, and 2 hard-boiled egg yolks.

  2. Add an equal amount of finely shaved suet and grated bread.

  3. Combine the mixture with 2 raw eggs.

  4. Roll the mixture in fresh butter.

  5. Stuff the mixture into the crops and bellies of the pigeons.

  6. Sew up the necks and vents of the pigeons.

  7. Dip the pigeons in water.

  8. Season the pigeons with pepper and salt.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the pigeons in a jug with a piece of celery.

  2. Seal the jug tightly.

  3. Set the jug in a kettle of cold water.

  4. Cover the jug and place a tile on top.

  5. Boil for 3 hours.

  6. Remove the pigeons from the jug.

  7. Place the pigeons in a dish.

  8. Take out the celery.

  9. Add a piece of butter rolled in flour to the dish.

  10. Shake until thick.

  11. Pour the mixture over the pigeons.

  12. Garnish with lemon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during long gentle boiling in the jug.
Livers from pigeons
Add a rich, savoury flavour and body to the stuffing.
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and add a creamy, rich texture.
2 raw eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together during cooking.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and adds bulk to the stuffing.
Flour
Thickens the butter and juices into a smooth sauce when shaken.

The step that matters

Set the jug in a kettle of cold water. Sealing the jug and surrounding it with water lets the birds cook gently in their own juices. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the sauce clear rather than boiling dry or toughening the meat.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, lemon, parsley, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, lemon, parsley, egg, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes